The Ticking Mind and Beating Heart: Speaking, Imagination and Empathic Intelligence

Abstract

This study was an attempt to investigate the nature of inter-subjective and intra-subjective phenomena in terms of the interface between language, thought, feelings as well as the relationships between teachers and students. In effect, this study discusses the mentioned issues by focusing on the argument that a sensitive attention should be given to the embodied language experiences brought by students into the class in order to demystify the discourse experiences which enhance or impede students' language progress. To this end, an eclectic model has been designed and developed based on some particular principles suggested by different approaches in CDA along with emphatic intelligence. Hence, a number of advanced Iranian students learning English as a foreign language were selected as the participants of the study who went under a 120- hour instruction. The study revealed that in teaching speaking skill, a kaleidoscopic view needs to be adopted in terms of the relation between and among the interlocutors in which the social relations seem to be crucial.